Two Just Stop Oil activists threw tinned tomato soup over Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers masterpiece, prompting fears that galleries will be forced to limit the public’s access to great works of art.
The female protesters, who removed jackets to reveal Just Stop Oil T-shirts, threw a can of Heinz soup over the 1888 artwork shortly after 11am on Friday, before glueing themselves to a wall.
The climate campaign group targeted Scotland Yard a few hours later, where 24 people were arrested after activists sprayed orange paint on a sign outside the building and glued themselves to the road outside.
Art historians warned that if activists continued to target great works of art in public galleries extra security measures, which force visitors to view paintings from afar, may be introduced.
The National Gallery said there was some minor damage to the frame, but the painting itself was covered by a sheet of glass so was fortunately “unharmed”. It is now back on display.
The work is the second from the gallery to targeted by Just Stop Oil, after two supporters glued themselves to John Constable’s The Hay Wain on July 4.
A National Gallery spokesman said it was conducting an “internal investigation” into Friday’s incident.
Phoebe Plummer was one of the Just Stop Oil activists at the National Gallery. She said: “Is art worth more than life? More than food? More than justice?
“The cost of living crisis is driven by fossil fuels. Everyday life has become unaffordable for millions of cold hungry families. They can’t even afford to heat a tin of soup.”
Anna Holland, her fellow protester, said: “UK families will be forced to choose between heating or eating this winter, as fossil fuel companies reap record profits.”
Visitors who were in the gallery at the time were escorted out by security, who then shut the doors to Room 43 of the gallery where the painting hangs.
Moyra Zaman, a retired grammar school teacher from Amersham, Bucks, who was waiting to visit the gallery, said: “It is ridiculous. There are better ways to protest. It is not exactly as if Van Gogh is responsible for oil extraction.”
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: “Both [protesters] have been arrested for criminal damage and aggravated trespass. Specialist officers have now un-glued them and they have been taken into custody to a central London police station.”
Philip Mould, an art dealer and the presenter of BBC One’s Fake or Fortune, told The Telegraph that publicly owned oil paintings were “highly vulnerable soft targets”.
“To attempt to destroy one – if that was their intention – in the name of an unrelated cause is an act of cowardly yobbery,” he said.
“The joy of works of art like that is to get intimately close to them and feel their physical presence and the alternative could be something ridiculously distant or overly guarded or virtual.
“This is something we must safeguard as a public experience.”
Ruth Millington, an author and art expert, also warned of the potential for heightened security measures at public institutions in the wake of the protest.
She said: “I think this latest attack on one of the National Gallery’s most loved paintings could result in far tighter security, both on the door and in the galleries themselves.
“It would be such a shame to be distanced further from the artworks, but I think this stunt could result in protective ropes and cordons and, much like as we see with the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, organised queues to see the masterpieces, with security stood close by.”
Sunflowers is one of the most popular paintings in the National Gallery and it is believed to be the work Van Gogh was proudest of.
Two years later, in 1890, at the age of 37 and having sold only one painting in his life, Van Gogh took his own life.
When Just Stop Oil supporters glued themselves to John Constable’s The Hay Wain earlier this year they also attached their own “reimagined version” to the portrait.
Brighton student Eben Lazarus, 22, is currently awaiting trial for glueing his hand to the painting.
He said: “We weren’t going there to destroy art. We were going in there to highlight that art will be destroyed not by us, but by our government, unless they take action, along with all our lives.”
Thursday marked the 14th day of “continuous disruption” by the environmental protest group, which has also seen protesters block several key roads in the capital over the past fortnight.
